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How Burlesque Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know front House Stuff Works
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clarkin.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: With me is always this Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Yeah,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: and over there's Jerry and this you should bob boom
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: ba ba boom. You know there's a name for that
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: song for the burlesqui strip teas what is it called
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: boo d D. That's called the Stripper by David Rose,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: who also did the Little House of the Prairie thing.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Really that was all about keeping your clothes on. He's
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: actually like one of my favorite dudes. Instrumental easy listening
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: stuff and he does like soft rock versions of like no,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: he does instrumental easy listening versions of soft rock songs.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: So he makes soft rock softer. Yeah wow, like you
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: can't even slip through your fingers, you know. But yeah,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: the Stripper is what it's called. And I'm sure you've
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: probably heard it at burlesque shows, because we should come
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: out and say I've never been to one, but you have. Yeah,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: I went to one of New York City. Yeah, uh,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: kind of the home of burlesque. Sure, it's one of
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: the certainly one of the capitals of neo burlesque New
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: York in l A or where it started in the
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: mid nineties. And I had a lot to do with
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: where it started in the you know, late eighteen hundreds
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: in early nineteen You're right, that is absolutely true. Yeah,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I went to one. Uh you know, it's fun. I
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: like throwback stuff, and um, I just I appreciate people
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: trying to bring stuff back, you know, especially like really
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: old school stuff, not like eighties like clothing. Are you
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: referring to my swatch? No? And what about my Ocean
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Pacific wind breaker? Wow? I didn't notice. No, I love
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: eighties clothing. I'm just saying when I'm talking about bringing
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: it back, I mean, like you know, the pantaloons and
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: the whole burless things. They definitely they have totally like
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: gone all in and as a result, it's been successful.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: It's been a very successful burlesque revival. It's like a movement. Yeah,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: you can throw a stone in America and you're gonna
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: hit a burlesque troop. Just throw it, close your eyes
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: and throw it. You don't even have to throw it. Well,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: it'll hit a burlesque trooper. Um. And that's a pretty
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: recent phenomenon. But it's kind of taken off like a rocket. Um,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: but you're saying it's true to form, true to the original. Yeah,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: the one I saw was very much so. It was
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: you know, sort of body and had some humor and um,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: of course strip tease action, but not like you know,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: the the strip club type of thing. It's it's supposed
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: to be like kitchy can't be stripped teases typically, right, yeah,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: like titillating and body, but not, um, it's not just
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: like a strip club strip no, no, no, no, not
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: at all. It's like dancing and fun and you know,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: it's a good time. People are laughing and have a
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: good time, whereas strip clubs are kind of like scary
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: to me, they are at least right. Um. So, you know,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: stripping actually came out of burlesque and then just kind
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: of went off on its own direction. But it's still
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: associated with burlesque. We'll we'll get into this. Um. Well, now, okay,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: let's talk about the history of this. I should say,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: chuck that if you look into burlesque, especially neo burlesque, Um,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: there's a real discussion about whether or not it's pro
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: feminist or counter feminist. Basically, yeah, it's pretty interesting. If
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: you speak to um, a burlesque, a neo burlesqu ar,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: read their words or writing or whatever, um, you're going
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: to find that they most likely identify as feminist or
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: at the very least with feminism. Um. And that doesn't
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: always jibe with how feminists think of them though. Yeah,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: and especially these days with the new stuff they um,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: you know, these are productions by women, uh, costuming by women,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: produced by women, performed by women, which follows women in
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: the audience, right, and then so it's empowering for a
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: lot of women, Like that's part of the the attraction
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: of it is it is it's women doing their own
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: thing and they're doing it and they're they're doing it. Well,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: it's it's you're right, there's a couple of schools of
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: thought period about that. It's like, does a woman take
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: her clothes off her money? Is that exploiting her? Or
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: is that a woman who's very comfortable with her body
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: and sexuality exploiting men for their dough? Right? But you
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: just you just said the magic word to men, Like
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: what is it seems to be like the baseline argument
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: is whether or not burlesque is for the male gays
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: or for women empowerment. Yeah, well, I think when we
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: look at the history, we'll see that it was generally
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: run by men back in the day and now is
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: more run by women, right, But originally it wasn't run
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: by men. It was originally no, it was originally women
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: producers back in the nineteenth century. And that's where you
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: get the association of women doing this stuff um on
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: their own. It's that's a true throw back to the
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: original founding of it. So let's go back in time. Then,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: let's go to the history of burlesque. Let's go over
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: to Great Britain where it started. It's eight forty and
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: here we are in England and ladies are very well
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: covered up. It's the Victorian era. Like neck to ankle
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: and skin is not in fashion, and so to see
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: a woman show a little skin, even if it's an ankle,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: is a very big deal, right. So imagine that if
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: you went to a performance of a show and it
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: was a kind of this weird satirical spoof of maybe
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: a Greek comedy, but it was lampooning current cultural and
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: political um items. But it was an all female troop
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: and the producer's name was a woman's name, and the
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: troop was wearing tights, their their legs weren't covered, right. That.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: That's what you call a cultural explosion, and people went
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: nuts for it, Yeah, they did. The word burlesque comes
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: from the Italian burlesco, or even further back, burla, which
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: means to ridicule um. And basically it's what like these
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: days would call satire. Yeah, it was. They were spoofs.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: They would spoof the upper class and spoof operas and
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: plays and Shakespeare and all those snotty snots that had
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: hangups in the upper echelons of society. They would make
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: fun of them. Yeah, like you wore a monocle, you're
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: gonna get skewered in a in a burlesque show. Yeah. Um.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: And the burlesque show itself was lots of song and
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: dance and um, musical numbers. Um. But it was. There
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: were two aspects of it from the beginning that survived
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: even to today. There's humor to its supposed to be
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: funny um. And there was nudity of some form. Both
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: of those were found in the first burlesque. Yeah. And
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: depending on what nudity meant back then today, like the
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: nudity could be wearing tights. Yeah exactly. You know, here's
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: my knees right like faint, prepared to faint right, um.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Because yeah, this was the very buttoned up Victorian era. Um.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: So it was a pretty big smash in Great Britain,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: and the earliest plays made enough money, um that they
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: shipped over to America. And in America there was a
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: The first one technically was called The Black Crook, and
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: it was a very big success. Yeah, the Black Crook.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Like I said, it was Broadway, it was the eighteen
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: sixty six at this point. And uh, they had um
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: pantaloons on. But the pantaloons only went down to their
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: mid thigh, which is a big deal. So from they're
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: wearing shorts in other words, yeah, you know, the big
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: puffy pantaloons from the mid thigh down. They had nothing.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: They had no sleeves. They had the bodices with no sleeves.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: There's another huge deal. It sounds like exactly like the
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: French illustration of like a can't hand answer. Yeah, pretty
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: much except more skin probably. Uh. And then the reviewers
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: that went nuts for it, um, like some of them
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: went nuts in a bad way and called it like filth.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: But other ones said, you know, remarked about there were
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: no clothes to speak of, but they had never seen
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: something like it's so amazing in their life. Yeah, it
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: was like just quite a spectacle. And the the the
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: reviewers that reviewed positively, uh felt the ire and pressure
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: of the puritanical sect um, which was pretty loud back then. Uh,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: And they changed their tune. So then you had nothing
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: but bad reviews of these things. But they were loud,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: bad reviews, and that just drew more audiences. Yeah, but
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: they were like noteworthy. People were going to these shows
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: early on, which was a big deal. It wasn't just
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: it did go back underground. But at first, like Mark
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Twain went to UH, one called the Four British Blonds.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: It was a troop and he said, the scenery and
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: are everything girls nothing but a wilderness of girls stacked up,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: pile on, pile away, aloft to the dome of the theater,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: dressed with a meagerness that would make a parasol blutch. Yeah,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: ta can turn of phrase, sure, Mark Twain, he was
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: a great writer. But another show came along after that too,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: that was a really big deal. Right, this is technically um,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I guess it was maybe the one
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: that really maybe the Black Crook proved that this thing
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: could be lucrative. And then the one that followed, ixion
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Um was the first true burlesque show to arrive in
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: the US. Yeah. I think Black Crook was a little
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: It was a Broadway show that just titilated, and so
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: people said, who was who was the lady? Her name
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: is Lydia Thompson. She was a burlesque producer. I think
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: she was like, you guys want to be titilated? Yeah,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: check this, let's do it for real. And she dropped
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: a burlesque show on him, which, now that we're talking
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: about this, I just realized I have been to a
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: burlesque show in Vegas. Oh yeah, yeah. It was at
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: uh uh one of the older casinos Circus Circus No, no, no,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: Golden Nugget. No, not that old. I can't remember, but
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: it was. It was called Jubilee. It was boring. Yeah. Well,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: the one I went to was in like a tiny
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: little bar in New York. This wasn't neo. This is
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: like straight up I think it had been performed ever
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: since the sixties or something. Yeah, it was just I
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: kept waiting for them to stop in the middle and
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: be like, where's this kidding, here's the real show. But
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: they didn't. It was so strange. I think everyone should
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: go see Jubilee and just it's bizarre. Yeah, you know,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: it sounds like one of those old Vegas shows. Um,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: so okay, so Ixion comes along and it's a it's
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: one of those Greek comedies updated to lampoon contemporary society
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: and culture. Um, and people love it. And you said
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Mark Twain went to one of these things that he
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: went to more than one. That's really saying something because
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: originally burlesque in the eighteen forties was created for the
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: lower classes in the middle class, just to make fun
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: of the upper classes. When it comes to America, it's
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: not just attracting the lower classes, it's attracting the middle classes.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Is attracting upper class society, possibly in part because it's
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: still making fun of the British. You know. Um, I
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: don't know if it would have been quite as well
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: received by the upper classes in American society if they
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: had come to make fun of America. But in very
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: short order, within just a few years, Lydia Thompson's success,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Um with her production, which by the way, netted six
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: or gross six point six million dollars in two thousand,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: twelve dollars. And it's one first season. That's awesome. It
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: was like three seventy thousand and in eighteen seventy dollars um.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: But based on her success, Americans started making their own
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: very quickly. Yeah, and um, it was in the eighteen
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: eighties a short time later that the male uh managers
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: and producers kind of took over because of course they
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: were already doing uh, you know, producing things, but they
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: saw that there was definitely money to be made. Right, Oh, hey, women,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: you you guys are living the dream. You're doing your
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: own thing. You're being empowered. Now we're taken over. But
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: it was still too titillate uh into spoof. But uh,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: there was definitely a little more uh attention paid to
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: the strip tease part of it, well, right, I mean,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: the the showing, the leg the costuming, the the just
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: kind of um, just shimmying around on stage definitely started
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: to come more towards the four but the strip teeth
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: hadn't been introduced yet. The first stripper was a woman
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: named Little Egypt, who did the first public strip um
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: at the World's Fair in Chicago. What was it called
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: the the Houchiuchi seriously uh, and that caused quite a stir.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: It was still you you could find a striptease here there,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: but it was underground still like stag parties and stuff
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: like that. Right, so burlesque was still there, were you.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, you went to a burlesque show, you're gonna
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: be titillated. But still it was the lampooning, the hilariousness
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: of it. They were stand up comics. Yeah. Well, things
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: really change when a producer named Michael, uh, Michael, leave it,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: love It, Love It. Yeah, okay, when he when he
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: started like a modern producer. Yeah, you know, well he
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: kind of was. He He claims he coined the term vaudeville,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: although if he claimed it, then it's probably not the case.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: I made that up. See um. But when he started producing,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: he basically put it in a three act format like
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: the three act minstrel shows of days before, with Act
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: one being um, just an ensemble entertainment UM skits, gags, jokes,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: fully dressed in formal clothing. Uh. Then Act two, which
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: was like a hodgepodge of comic skits, and singing acts
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: and things like that, and then finally act three, which
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: was what they called a burletta, which was a full
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: one act musical burlesque. That was that's when they would
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: usually like spoof Shakespeare or somebody. Right, So that format
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: became the format for all burlesque shows to follow what
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: was at the eighteen eighties. Uh yeah, okay, Um. And
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: what he did was he took what was traditionally the
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: burlesque show, which was this spoofy play, and condensed it
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: into one act, the third act, and then added this
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: other stuff exactly. So vaudeville and burlesque are kind of
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: co evolving at the same time. Apparently this man was
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: patient zero. I hadn't heard that. But um, the vaudeville,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: for some reason had a little more of a better
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: reputation burlesque. They weren't taking the clothes off, I guess so.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: But um, you found a lot of the same um elements,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: especially stand up comedy, and there were some, um, really
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: great legendary comics like Jackie Gleason and um I hope yeah,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Read Skelton, W. C. Fields, Fanny Bryce, Funny Girl. UM
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: who started out in burlesque graduated to Vaudeville and then
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: went on to TV. Um just basically followed the media
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: as it went. But some of those people, Um, they'll
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: look down on burlesque, but they still exactly when they
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: needed money, they would adopt the pseudonym and they could
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: do a little burlesque to her. Because burlesque was a
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: lot steadier income. It was virtually guaranteed income. Vaudeville was
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: a little more respected, but burlesque was guaranteed work. Yeah.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: And this writer name HERB Goldman wrote a book called
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Fanny Bryce, The Original Funny Girl, where he pretty much
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: came out and said, like, by the time he got
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: to Vaudeville your seasons, burlesque was the proving ground if
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: you wanted to get in the show business. Yeah. For
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: ladies and men. Men were the comics at the time
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: typically Yeah, and um, we can thank burlesque also for um,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: the word top banana and second banana. Yeah, I had
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: to do with the comics in like a comedic group.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: The guy who was the straight man or whatever, like Mo,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: he would have been the top banana, and then Larry
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: might have been second banana, and Curly would have been
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: third banana. I thought you were talking about the Simpsons
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: for a second, It's like Mo would be the top banana. Yeah, probably,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: I don't wonder who is the top banana in the sentence.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: I don't think they followed that schematic. No, not at all.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Oh god, So early nineteen hundreds nineteen o five, there
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: began to be vaudeville style circuits going around sort of
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: like a traveling circus, and uh, they played in rotations,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: so they became known as wheels. And they had the
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Columbia Wheel on the eastern US, the Empire Wheel on
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: the western US, the Mutual Wheel, which I'm not sure
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: where that was probably the Midwest, Midwest. And then there
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: was a fourth wheel called the Independent that actually went
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: bankrupt because they were too dirty. They refused to change,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: so they would get shut down so much they just
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: couldn't hang. Yeah, and that was the thing that would
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: happen um with the burlesque house. Um. And these wheels
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: were basically just circuits that involved burlesque houses around you know,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: a certain region, and they were so established and these
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: shows were so guaranteed to draw a crowd that these
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: wheels were um. They would last for forty weeks. So
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: you're getting a burlesque troop and you had steady work
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: for forty weeks out of the year. That's just that's
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: your life, that's your livelihood. And um, this went on
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: for like thirty years like this, So I mean, think
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: about it. In show biz, there was for three decades
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: a place where you could go and get steady work
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: and basically make your career for your life, especially as
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: a woman at the time, you know. Uh, and well
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: we're in the nineteen hundreds, but from the eighteen eighties forward. Uh,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: like you said, comedy was mainly um, working class, and
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: it kind of occurred to me that that laid the
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: groundwork for sitcoms. Oh yeah, because like the Family, like
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: so many not most, but well maybe most sitcoms are
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: kind of aimed towards like working class regular people, right,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: King of Queens. Not everything is a fresh princip bel air, right.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: You know, Well, that's that's kind of follows in the
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: burlesque um tradition because they're making fun of the upper
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: class by insinuating somebody from the lower lower middle class
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: into the upper class to point out all of the
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: foibles of the rich. Yeah, I guess, I guess you're right.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: I never really thought I was trying to rack my
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: brain for sitcoms based on rich people and most of
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: well that's what I was just thinking. But they kind
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: of mocked them as well. I don't remember Soberspon's being mocky.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I guess you're right. But think about it,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: like the most all sitcoms involved the working class mass.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Those were working class doctors, and you know, like you
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: took something from the upper class and put them in
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: the battlefield. That's working class. Now, King of Queen's Archie Bunker, Jefferson's,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: they were all sort of middle class to working class
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: because no one wants to sit around watch funny rich people.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Different strokes with rich people. But they pointed out the
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: foibles a little bit too. Two poor kids though, Yeah, yeah, man,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: we are smart dudes. We just cracked the sitcom enigma.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Everyone's like, we knew that, right. Uh So one of
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: the big um parts of the comedy bits in burlesque
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: was word play, and this is where Abbot and Costella,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: even though Who's on first wasn't invented, uh, in burlesque,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: it was definitely hone there. Oh I thought it was
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: invented there. Now they that's where they like really got
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: got their stuff down. Um. But it was very often uh,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: a lot of intricate word play, misunderstood words. Um. And
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: I think we should do this a bit, the Cohen
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: and Cohen bit. Okay, you're prepared to do that. I am, Okay,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: I am, so I'll be uh, you be the caller, okay,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: and I will be the person who answers that a right,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: So I ring you up, ring, ring ring, Hello Cohen, Cohen,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Cohen and Cohen. Let me speak to Mr Cohen. Oh,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: he's dead these six years, we keep his name on
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: the door out of respect. Well, then let me speak
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: to Mr Cohen. Well he's on vacation. Well then let
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: me speak to Mr Cohen. He's out to lunch. Ah,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: let me speak to Mr Going speaking. Don't that was
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: pretty good? That was real good. We didn't even practice that.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: We should go on the road. Yeah, let's do that. Yeah,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: yeah we should. What do you think about doing some
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: sort of stuff you should know tour? I think we
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: totally should. I mean, we already have done variety shows
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: and all we need is a strip tease act and
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: we're burlesque. Well, let's do a variety show. Or like
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: maybe a trivia tour or something like that. Let's hit
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: the road, man, that's it. Did we just birth birthing idea?
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: I think? So? All right, okay, people can be like,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: come to Minneapolis, come to Kansas City. Man, you better
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: not be wearing monocles because you're going to feel the sting.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: I think if we do tour that we should go
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: to you know, all over Yeah, not just like oh
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: New York in l A. No, No, we'll do like
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: a little little tour. Yeah, okay that we'll do the
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: mutual circuit or the mutual Wheel. We'll do all three wheels. Um. So,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: burlesque developed to the point where they had a their
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: own language, basically like many you know, industries in the
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: entertainment business. Um, but you can guess my favorite. A
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: jerk Yeah, the jerk was an audience member. A yak
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: was a big belly laugh. Yeah, think about the yucks
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: that came from that. Of course, that makes sense. Yeah,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: if you make a funny face as a performer, that's
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: a skull. A Mountaineer was a brand new comic that
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: apparently came from the Cat's skill circuit up in the
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: mountains there and then I thought this was interesting. The
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Boston version was a cleaned up version of the routine. Yeah,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: because the sensibilities of Boston nights are famous, famously touchy.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: And then you know, there's a whole list of vocabulary here,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: but we don't have to go through it all. Yeah.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: But I mean, like some of the terms that we
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: used again top, banana, yucks, jerk. This came from burlesque
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: The Way to Go Burlesque, So, um, there's like kind
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: of this, Hey, Dave. Burlesque is enjoying its first wave
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: in the United States. Um, and then all of a
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: sudden they have big competition. It's called movies and then
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: worse than movies, talkies. Yeah, and burlesque is like, uh,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: what can we do that the movies can't do to
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: get people in to take off even more clothing exactly. Yeah,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: and that actually did it, because not only did that
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: save burlesque and make it competitive against the movies, it
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: actually kicked off the heyday. Once the the burlesque performers
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: uh started taking off their clothes and doing strip teases,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: like real strip teases. That's when burlesque saw its golden era. Yeah.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: But again, these are nineteen twenties strip teases. So it's
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: not like going to one of those filthy places these days, uh,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: like a strip club. Um, we're talking Gypsy rose Lee
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: and Sally Ran doing like the fan dance where you
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: know they're they're so good with that fan. You can
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: never quite tell what's going on behind the fan. I know,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: have you seen a fan dance? They're like very um
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: the they just the keeping it placed and moving it
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: as you move around on stage and cover yourself. Um,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: is that's art? I mean that takes work. No, of
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: course it does, because if you showed too much, you
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: got busted, right, you gave your reveal too soon? Yes,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: and by busted, we mean like the cops would put
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: you in jail. Perhaps, Oh oh, I see what you mean.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: And that was actually like pretty common apparently, like the
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: burlesque houses would be shut down, the person headlining would
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: be arrested for moral for corrupting moral sensibilities. Yeah, there
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: were these dudes, um, the Minsky brothers, A Billy Herb
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: and Morton, and they were big time burlesque producers and
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: uh they were your Yeah, they were rated a bunch
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: um rate n became famous because they wrote a book
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: and made a movie about it. But the night they
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: rated Minsky's on the Notes. Yeah, but um, they said
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: it just became popular because of the attention. Like it
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: was basically a cycle of uh, covering up too much
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: audience dwindles, um, revealing too much audience booms, you get rated,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: so you start covering up again, and it just kind
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: of kept going like that. Uh. There was a law
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: in New York that you could be topless at that
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: point as long as you didn't move. Supposedly that law
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: is still in effect. You don't move. I don't know
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: about the as long as you don't move part, but
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: you you can legally walk around New York topless mayon
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: or a woman, um, and and not be breaking the law. Really. Yeah,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: so Splash was actually factually incorrect the movie Splash. Yeah,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: although I think Darrehina was like all the way naked
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: when she comes out of the water the first time. Remember, yeah,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: they arrested her. Yeah. I love that movie. When I
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: was a kid, I thought it was pretty great. Um.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: So Uh. The Minsky brothers are pretty infamous, so much
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: so that Mary LaGuardia at the time, who was a
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: moral reformer. He is the early Giuliani. Right, yeah, he
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: it's exactly right, Like, let's clean this down up. Um
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: he uh. He made a law where you couldn't publicly
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: advertise using the word burlesque or the word Minsky. Yeah.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: So like they were pretty infamous. They made the Mayor
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: of New York man, well, they think we're the first
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: ones to to Apparently the first raid in nineteen seventeen,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: there was a h performer named made Dix who, as
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: she was leaving stage, was accidentally absent mindedly removing her
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: clothing for the next act and just did it before
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: she was off stage, and the dudes went nuts. So
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: she was turned around and went back out, and one
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: of the I think it was Billy Minsky, was like, hey,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: let's see if we can make that accident happen every night.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah. That was the beginning of the whole thing,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: the beginning of like the full nudity, and that's what
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: led to that first raid. So um, let's go back
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: to the uh, the the strip teasers themselves, like you
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: mentioned Gypsy rose Leie and Sally rand Um, whose names
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: are still pretty well known in the popular culture. And
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: the reason why is because these ladies were superstars like
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: they um catapulted from their burlesque routines into um, you know,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: starring roles in movies and in culture and society. They
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: were written about, they were lauded. Um, they were just
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: they were big deals. Like they they came about at
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: a time and burlesque strip teases came about at a
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: time when a significant portion of society was ready to
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: um I love it. Yeah. And Gypsy rose Lee too.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: She was um smart lady, and she didn't mind being
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: smart on stage. She would perform, Uh these monologues were
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: very high brow with a British accent and uh, or
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: not a British accent, but like a you know, an
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: upper class accent, like a finishing school accent, is how
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Julia Layton puts it. Yeah. And she would tell jokes,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: like really intellectual, smart jokes and uh, super witty, and
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: she would do her strip tease. It was the first
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: time that the strip teas and comedy were married right
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: in one and you know, at the same time. Like
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: she would just kind of go around the stage and
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: she'd come out and like all of these layers and
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: petty coats and all that stuff, and then she would
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: just kind of tell jokes or make witty observations as
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: as she was slowly revealing these things, and then by
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: the end of her act she was she had basically
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: pasties on and it just wiled the crowd. Um, and
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: she I want to see Gypsy? Have you ever seen
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: that movie? No? It was I think a Broadway show too,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: wasn't it right? I think it was her memoirs a book,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: and then they made it into a Broadway show, and
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: then they made it into a movie, and um, I
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: think it was. It says it was Natalie Wood who
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: played her in the movie. I want to see it
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: because she sounds like a pretty interesting person. Yeah, I
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: haven't seen an uh. And then one of her probably
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: the next biggest superstar of her exact era, which was
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: the thirties, was Sally Rand, And you can thank Sally
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Ran for inventing the fan dance and the will dance.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Those were her two big ones. She had a bunch
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: of acts, but her two big acts were. The fan
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: dance was just two huge ostrich feathers that she used
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: to cover up and just maneuver around. And then, um,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: the the bubble dance was like a five foot balloon
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: that she just kind of rolled around. Um, yeah, it's
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: pretty cool. Yeah, And dudes were like, what's behind the BALLU? Right? Pop? Yeah? Uh,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: so we'll continue on in the nineteen twenties right after
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: this message. All right, so we're kind of back to
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: the twenties. I thought we were in the thirties. We're
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: jumping around a little bit. Uh. A very cool thing
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: happened in the nineteen twenties with burlesque, which was uh,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: it was no longer all white. Um. It wasn't integrated
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: of course at the time, but there started to be
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: all black burlesque clubs, all Latin clubs, all Chinese clubs,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: and really kind of spread. Like I said, though they
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: weren't cheering the stage, but um, at least they were
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: like representing their cultures. Can close off the money, right
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: you know? Well, you know you said something a little
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: while ago before the break, um that like the men
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: were like, what's like they wanted to balloon to pop. Um.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: With the advent of the strip tease coming front and
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: center in a burlesque show, UM, the male audience increased tremendously.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: The ratio of men to women in an audience really
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: skewed towards men. It became more about the strip tease
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: and less about the comedy, I think exactly, and so
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: the the audience became increasingly um men and randy men. Yeah,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: and that's one of the reasons why burlesque still today
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: um has a this kind of body um implication to
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, because at that point it
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: kind of shifted some. Um, it became a little less intelligent,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: a little less comedic. And then these strippers themsel else,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: we're funny. They were trying to get yucks and stuff themselves.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: But you would also, you know, you'd have like a
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: stand up comedian and then a strip tease. And that
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: was what the burlesque show kind of evolved today. And
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: that was sort of the beginning of the end because
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: a lot of the comics moved on to like you said,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: TV and film and took those x with them. I mean,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: if you look at the comedy at the time and
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: still today, they're like elements of burlesque all over the place.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Oh for sure, you know, but I mean again, we're
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: talking like burlesque hata Hey day, like even more than
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: its first wave from about the twenties to the sixties.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: And what's interesting is um that the women involved, like
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: um Gypsy had a movie made about her. Another one
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: who came a little later in the fifties, she was huge.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Her name was Blaze Star. Yeah, with two rs like
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: Brenda Star uh and Blaze Star. Um. Have you ever
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: seen that movie Blaze with Paul Newman and uh Lolita David. Yeah?
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Was that that was about her? And she did this
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: really well known strip tease where um, there'd be like
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: a sette and she would just kind of maneuver around
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: it and everything and do your strip tease and end
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: up on it and then smoke would come out and
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: streamers would come down. Smoke would come out from between
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: her legs. The one I saw it didn't but it
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: was for TV, so they may have. She may have
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: altered it some. It looked like it was for TV. Um,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: but it was, I mean pretty good stuff. Yeah. May
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: West famous screenstar. She started off in burlesque, and she's
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: one of the early ladies who embraces her sexuality and say, hey, man,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: look at me, right, I'm a sexy lady. So it's
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: extremely popular. It's it's about as mainstream as it can be.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: And then it's also kind of maybe hastening the sexual
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: revolution along a little bit um and then it basically
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: is killed. It's eaten by its own offspring. So the
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: reason burlesque went away in the sixties was because access
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: and availability of pornography became much more widespread around that time,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: and guys didn't need to go to burlesque shows any longer. Yeah,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: I guess, uh, you could call it the natural progression
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: of things that continues to this day. But yeah, hardcore
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: porn was available, and uh, it really died out pretty
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: quickly after that for a while, like for a solid
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: like forty years. Yeah. And there was a the one
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: noteworthy UM throwback or aspect revival of it. I guess
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: it was in nineteen seventy nine Broadway show that was
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: pretty successful. It had more performances. It was called Sugar
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Babies starring Mr Mickey Rooney and MS and Miller Classic
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: and Um. It was a period piece, a backstage period
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: piece UM set in the nineteen thirties during the heyday
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: of burlesque shows, and it was about a burlesque troupe
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: in its performance. Yeah, that was you know, things come
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: back around owned and people become fascinated with the old stuff.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: That was like the late seventies was the perfect time
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: to revive a nineteen thirties style thing. I think it
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: was a really big hit. But yeah, and they were
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: into the fifties then too. Remember the greaser thing with Grease?
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, Seana, uh yeah, performing it would stock?
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: Did they? Yeah? They did, didn't they? Yeah. It always
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: baffled me until I sort of realized that, you no,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: like ten or fifteen years after something's popular, people are
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: into it again, like Happy Days and Seanna, No, that
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: wasn't Happy Days. Yeah, good stuff. So Chuck wrote about
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: here seems like another a good time for a break
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: because we're about to go into the neo burlesque revival. Agreed,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: So Chuck, you're back. So um. We'd say sometimes that
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: you know, something didn't really go away, it just went underground. Yeah.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's necessarily the case of burlesque. I
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: think it like went away. I think you would have
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: been hard pressed sure to find a burlesque show in
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: the United States. Yeah. Um. And but in the mid nineties,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: two different groups independently revived it um and there were
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: two people who were basically at the heart of it
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: um Billy Madley in New York and Michelle Carr in
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles at about the same time in the nineties
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: revived burlesque. And it certainly didn't hurt that people like
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Ditavantises were marrying Marilyn Manson and becoming Internet famous for
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: their throwback nineteen thirties style. But now you add tattoos
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: to that equation. Yeah, it seems to be a lot
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: of that, Yeah, with the burlesque scene now burlex scene. Yeah,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: so let's talk about the neo burlesque scene. You've got
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: to keep in mind that burlesque already had this um.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Like I said, it's just kind of a body reputation
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: because the striptease was introduced in Pushed Front and Center. Um,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: And so there's certainly an element to that, like the
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: the striptease is definitely still part of the neo burlesque scene.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: But um, there's also as Julia Layton points out, it's
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: it's more you could call a lot of it more
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: performance art um or there's certainly elements of performance are
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: in the modern neo burlesque um act yeah, for sure,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, and they're also um with neo burlesque,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: they are ah, shining the light on people who may
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: have not been on stage before, like plus size women,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: or they would play with gender. Um, there's a performer
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: called world Famous. I want to say b O B.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: Here's it just Bob? I think, I think b O B.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: Whatever you spell your name with an asterisk capital bob
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: and an asterisk that you're kind of calling attention to it. Yeah,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: and uh, b O B was a former drag queen
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: even though she was a woman, so she called herself
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: a female female impersonator. Yeah, so just basically messing with
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: these conventions. Um. That was a male performer name uh
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: tigger with an exclamation point. Yeah he's still around, is he?
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: That's what I figured. And he had a very famous
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: strip teach routine where he would be a priest courting
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: an altar boy. So they're definitely like pushing the boundary still.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and that was that definitely is the heart
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: of burlesque as it was originally created. I mean like
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: it's satirical, it's biting, it's um. It criticizes the powers
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: that be UM and uh, there's there's one out there.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: And now there's a UM lady name Honey Wild who
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: does a Margaret Thatcher Regie, I've heard of her, and
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: at one point she there's a man um bent over
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: and on his bottom is the word labor and of
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: course with the you like the Labor party and Margaret
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Thatcher spanking it with a riding crop. So this is
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: like it's burlesque as it was originally conceived by the
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: women in the nineteenth century who produced the earliest shows,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: but it's melded with the heyday from the twenties to
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: the sixties. Um, where there's stripped ts and they there's
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: different acts. There's comedy elements to a stand up comedy
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: as well. Um so yeah, but it's also contemporized. Feel
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: like you've got Margaret Thatcher well fairly contemprised, right, It's
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: more contemporized than say like Greek comedies. And then um,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: I saw one by the Devil's Playground Troop. They do
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: a Star Wars for Less, complete with slave layer. Of course,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: the job of the hut makes an appearance very disturbingly. Um,
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: there's like a Stormtroopers. It's it's like, you know, I'm
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: sure nerd Heaven. Yeah, you're you're marrying several different things there. Yeah,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: and you hit. You know you you mentioned it when
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: like you kind of see a lot of tattoo culture
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: involved in this. UM. It does seem like the neo
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: ber lesque movement pulls in from a lot of different fields,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: like like tattoo culture, feminist porn um, the the original
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: burlesque stuff, performance and drag queens. UM. All these different
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: cultures kind of come together and um are are created
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: put into acts now neo burlesque acts. Yeah, it's it's
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: it's a cultural movement, even more so than just a performance,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: you know, it's it's bigger than that now and took
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: um I said, Uh, this neo burlesque um kind of
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: incorporates drag queen aspects to show like there are um,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: the fluid gender um. It makes an appearance a lot
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: um And that's kind of appropriate because drag drag clubs
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: and drag queens and just drag acts definitely grew out
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: of burlesque UM, either as a parody of burlesque or
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: just from it as its own thing. Yeah, yeah, totally.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: So it's it's had a huge cultural impact. Yeah. The
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: drag shows I've been too definitely just smacked of true burlesque.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: The camp out the at the Yin Yang um, and
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: so it's very it's it's kind of neat that neo
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: burlesque takes all of the things that burlesque spawned and
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: just kind of brings it back together. Yeah. I think
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: burlesque is about acceptance. They're not a very exclusionary group.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: That is neat A neat way to put it. You
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: just summed it up. So anytime you have a cultural movement, Chuck,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: that means that you are going to have cultural critics
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: about it. Well, no, I mean we talked about the
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: running a file of feminism, um, and I mean that's
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: certainly I don't necessarily have a lot to speak to
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: on that because I don't really know what the answer
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: there is. I've just seen from what I've seen, it
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: seems like the burlesque performers are like, you're not getting this.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: This is not about titilating men. If that's really what
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: you think it is, go to more burlesque shows and
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: you will see and feminists, um, feminist critics of burlesque say,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter how you dress it up, you're still
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: stripping and there's still men who are just you know, objectifying. Yeah,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: in the audience. Yeah, but who wants to hear what
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: too stupid middle aged dudes have to say about it.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: I feel like we shouldn't even have an opinion. Well,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: there you go. I think that's what I was trying
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: to say, is I mean, this is more just bringing
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: up like there's a discussion going on in it. From
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: that viewpoint, it doesn't seem like it could be rectified.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: It's more just like enjoy it or don't you know? Yeah,
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: I agree, Um ah, that's an opinion. Uh well I've
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: already said I agree because I've gone to a show
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: where two and it's fun. Yeah. Well there you Uh.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: The other thing that happens when there's a cultural movement
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: going on is you learn it. You can make a
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: little dough off of it because it's gone mainstream to
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: a certain degree. And if you live in a major city,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: or maybe even a minor city, you'd likely have some
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: sort of burlesque class or school situation going on there. Right,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: Atlanta's got a burlesque school. Um, They're all over the
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: place and basically just encouraging ladies to get out there
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: and have a little fun. Uh. There's one teacher named
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Vivian Vum that says she teaches a room full of
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: librarians to bump and grind, and I bet it's a blast.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: And that's another Those are two more words that we
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: can thank for burlesque. Four bump and grind. Those were
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: original terms for part of the act. Right. The grind
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: is making a circle with your hip. I wish people
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: could see moving your pelvis back and forth. Bump and
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: grind came from burlesque. This or just a video podcast. Uh.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: There's a burlesque performer named Michelle Lamore whose um work
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: is cited in the introduction of this article. She does
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: something called Beethoven's Fifth Symphony watched where yeah, it's pretty impressive,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: where um, she comes out in like a coat and
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: tails and um, nothing else pretty much Yeah, and uh
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: sits in front of a sheet music stand on like
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: a nice piano bench with her facing the audience right. Uh,
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: and then twerks the Beethoven's Fifth And she actually has
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: an instructional DVD called Booty Camp. I believe what torque
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: is that a new word for an old thing? The
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: DVD is called booty Le. No, it's a new thing.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's an old thing. No, people have
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: been twerking forever. They used to call it like you know,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: backing that thing up or whatever, Like, twerking is not
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: a new thing. Are you sure? Because twerking is like
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: doing individual cheeks. Yeah, I'm positive. Cheeks is another word
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: that came out of burlesque as a as a euphemism
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: for bottoms. Cheeks. No, it's definitely not new, since there
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: have been cheeks. Cheeks have been Okay, you manipulated for entertainment. Okay,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: well then yes, it's a new word for it, and
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: it's it's Yeah, there's some people who excel at it
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: on the internet, like Carmel Kitten. Look her up because
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: she is hilarious. I guess in a way she um
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: it's like superhuman. Yeah, she has preternatural control over her
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: bottom muscles, her butt muscles. I keep saying bottom Like
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: there's two year olds that listen to our podcast. I
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: feel like I have no control. Well, you can work
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: at it, all right, I can do it. Yeah. I
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: can work on my ears too, as you know from
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: the Natural Selection podcast. No, but check check out Carmel Kitton.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: She's hilarious. She she um tworks in random places and
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: then she'll say, the place that she's working at as
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: she's tworking, so she'd be like tworking in the library,
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: tworking in the library, and like um, when she does
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: the tworking library, she looks at the camera and goes
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: she puts her finger up to her mouth while she's tworking.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: She could probably make some money if I think I've
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: made a lot of money working it subway working. Yeah,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: I think she's making it through YouTube ads. But yeah,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: she's probably you know, she could replace Jared on subway
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: by somebody used to Wells North Jared, Well, he was.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: That whole thing came out last week when he was
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: defending them for putting h oh, that's stuff in the bread,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: toxins in their bread. Yeah, but I mean he kind
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: of has to. He's a very rich man because of them,
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: and a very fit man. He's lean. Good for him.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: He's still a nerd well sure, but he knows he is.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: He's Jared. I'm not a fan of Jared. Nope. How
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: do you dislike Jared? It's like disliking a friendly horse
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: or something, you know, like what the he could the horse?
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: I ever do to you? That just debugs me. Jared,
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: you are the first person I've ever met that didn't
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: like Jared, although I don't really talk about him a
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: lot now that I think of it. Yeah, if if
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: I saw Jared on the street, I would punch him
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: in the face. And I'm a non violent person. Well,
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: Jared's deer clear a chuck because you do something to
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: him that he don't like. Actually, i'd meet him at it.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: Go oh dude, can I get my picture made? Well? Yeah,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: see with Jared, He's like, I heard what you said
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: about me, So I guess that's burlesque. If you want
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: to know more about it, again, throw a rock, go
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: talk to the person that it hit, because it's probably
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: a burlesque trooper. Apologize and say hey, where are you
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: guys performing? And go see a show. Support neo burlesque
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: unless you are critical of it, and in case don't, yeah,
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: I don't go yeah. Um. And if you want to
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: know more about burlesque, you can type that word into
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: the search bart house to first dot com. And I
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: have one more point. I was wondering, what's the difference
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: between cabaret and burlesque. I don't know, they're virtually one
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: and the same. Cap well, which was first burlesque. I
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: think they co evolved, but I think burlesque was. Yes,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: I think burlesque was technically first. Maybe cabaret was the
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: French version. No, it's not. I think the big difference
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: is the cabaret is a little more focused on singing
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: and dancing and like the band, but it's almost the
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: exact same. Burlesque was more about comedy and skits and yeah,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: all right, okay, So I did say first bar a
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: little while back, which means it's time for listener mail.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this um inquisition statements sexy. No, not
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: sexy at all. Hey, guys, recently listened to The Inquisition show,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: and I had a story. I'm a reform Jew and
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: in my high school my rabbi told me a story
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: about visiting Spain. She was there on a scholarly trip
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: of some kind and befriended a local Catholic woman. My
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: rabbi eventually talked about Shabbat and the lighting of the
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: candles and the prayers. The woman said she had a
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: similar family tradition and invited my rabbi and her peers
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: to dinner on Friday. Before dinner, she and her family
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: went into the basement of the house and basically performed
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: a Shabbat service. The prayers were Jewish prayers, uh, though
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: the woman performing the service didn't know that. All she
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: knew was that on Friday, the family went to a
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: hidden place that was sort of secret. After looking into it,
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: they found research saying Spanish and Mexican. Uh, Crypto Jews
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: aren't uncommon people who had converted during one of the
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: Inquisition but kept their traditions secretly, which we talked about. Um.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: This woman had no idea why she was doing what
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: she did, but she continued to do it. Uh. And
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: that is from Brittany, And she says, PS. While I
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: do love your show, everyone else in my life hates
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: that I listen. It's like word Jared to those people.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: I recently visited the UK and went to Warwick Castle
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: with my boyfriend. Oh yeah, we're despised at Warwick Castle.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: They keep vultures there and I would not shut up
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: about defensive vomiting sky burials in Old World and New
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: World vultures. I'm surprised my boyfriend didn't lock me in
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: the dungeon. Huh. So that is from Brittany. Brittany, keep
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: on keeping on, you know, Yep, you just keep on
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: sighting stuff you should know. Eventually all these haters will
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: fall away in in cycle out of your life, and
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: you'll get a good boyfriend exactly. If you want to
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: tell us why your boyfriend or girlfriends thinks, you can
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: tweet to us at s Y s K podcast. You
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: can join us on Facebook dot com slash Stuff you
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: Should Know. You can join us on our YouTube channel
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: to search Josh and Chuck, send us an email The
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com, and as always, joined
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: us at at Home on the Web. Stuff you Should
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: Know dot com for more on this and thousands of
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: other topics. Is it how Stuff Works dot com